Panda-monium at Hong Kong airport

1,600 papier mache pandas have landed at Hong Kong airport as part of a
campaign for panda protection

The pandas, created by French artist Paulo Grangeon in collaboration with the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), are a protest work from the artist about the dwindling panda population.

Each paper panda represents a real panda. In 2004, the WWF estimated that only 1,600 pandas inhabit the planet and that the species is endangered. Forty per cent more pandas were thought to have existed in the 1980s. Threats to panda survival include illegal logging in their natural habitat and poaching. Organisers are seeking more measures to allow the panda population to grow.

The papier mache pandas have already toured France, the Netherlands, Italy, Germany, Switzerland and Taiwan as part of a world tour. Their arrival in Hong Kong brings them closer to the natural home of real pandas, in the bamboo forests of western China.

The gathering of pandas will not sit at the airport for long - organisers of the campaign exhibition say that Hong Kong will see flash mobs of pandas throughout the city in the coming weeks including at Victoria Harbour, the Shatin racecourse and on the city's trams.